Lordmonkus Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 Mednafen is a fine emulator but it is command line driven and all configuration is done either through command line parameters or manually editing the config file which has a section for each of its "cores". There are some 3rd party GUIs out there for it and they get the job done but they tend to be clunky as well. That's the thing about UIs, the more complicated and feature rich a program becomes the more complicated the UI has to become. As for Retroarchs controller "issues" I have yet to run into an issue with it outside of setting up controls for N64 which I admit is wonky. I have setup multiple controllers and even different controllers for different cores and setting them all up have been a breeze. The controllers I have set up are an Xbox 360, Hori FC which is basically a PS3 controller and a wireless Logitech F710 and no issues with either of them. Yes, previous versions of RA had a weird naming scheme which was confusing when you wanted to change some stuff but it really wasn't that bad. Since the 1.4.0 beta releases though the naming has been brought in line with the controllers and is super easy now. Anyways this thread is now off topic so keep the Retroarch UI discussion out of it unless the OP asks questions about it. People need to not hijack threads when Retroarch gets mentioned. I know there are people out there who hate on Retroarch and that's fine, just keep your opinions on it in relevant threads or to yourselves. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thatman84 Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 @lordmonkus noted. I editted my post straight after if you missed it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 I saw RocketLauncher metioned; If you're worried about RA being complicated, then RL would be out of the question too. That said, RetroArch has evolved quite a ton, and things like controller mapping is much much easier now. It's understandable when you see people talk about RA being bad, but a version number should really accompany it. When I used RetroArch v 1.0 - 1.2, it sucked ass. Figuring out the command lines for the first time, and the RGUI, while not terrible, was laid out poorly and nothing was explained. They've since changed to an XMB styled UI, labeled things better, explained what menu items do in the UI now, and now that we've figured out a ton of the emulator quirks that aren't in documentation, it helps. Thatman is totally right, most people will not look things up them selves, and instead bitch and moan or move on. Look at our forums, I'll answer a question 1 day, and the next day someone has asked the exact same thing. It happens everywhere, and I would consider our community one of the best. I had the same issues with MESS until I was able to figure out it's quirks and document them in an easy to understand way, then it became much much easier. RetroArch, once we figured it out and documented helped a ton, but the program has seriously evolved. If someone still doesn't want to use it, then that's totally fine, that's the name of the game: Choice. But if you ask us what a lot of us consider to be the best emulator package available, we're gonna tell you, and quite a few us of consider that RetroArch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thatman84 Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 Sorry to derail but do you guys here have a list of "preferred" emulator that covers the whole list of DB platforms? I have seen a few and wondered if one was floating about here? With a short explaination. I know lord done similar with the cores in his tutorial Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLS Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 MAME is one of the simplest emulators. Maybe 3 minutes to set up if you have the data/metadata it needs to play (and look nice). RetroArch is NOT an emulator and is NOT simple to grab if you are someone that starts from scratch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 MAME is no where near simple either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLS Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 (edited) MAME runs using default settings after you simply extract the release and then dropping the roms/snapshots/samples etc. in their proper folders (for people that find complex to define alternative paths in the ini). Then you simply run it and you get a very workable GUI that is mouse and keyboard friendly. You can't get simpler than that (I mean for something out of the box and not preconfigured by someone). Edited May 25, 2017 by NLS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charco Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 To each their own I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 You must make sure you have the right rom pack, and they don't have to but the pack and emulator version should match. With RetroArch, all you need to do is make sure you have the right command line, which LaunchBox does for you. Import MAME games with the MAME Importer, don't let LB move them, done. Import regular games, select RetroArch, use or slightly modify the command line, done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLS Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 (edited) No offence, but what you describe is infinitely more complex than what I described. You have to think with the mentality of someone that doesn't know what to do. Think of the steps you describe and what I describe (ok given that someone should tell you to throw roms as they are -unextracted- in roms folder... but MAME will even read extracted fine if they are extracted using folders in the names of the archives, which is pretty much what even a newbie would do, or risk mixing thousands of random files in a folder). And in MAME you don't have to exactly match the version with the roms, who says that? Yes few roms will not work if you are 1-2-3-4-5 releases apart (new roms plus VERY few renames). But few in thousands. Also I dunno it seems pretty much a giveaway to me that someone should match "mame 0.185" with "mame roms 0.185", when trying to set up things... If you run RetroArch MAME core, data/metadata needs are exactly the same as running MAME directly, running RetroArch doesn't change anything about that. Only adds extra layers of things to configure. When I first run RA many releases ago, I couldn't even figure out that I need to manually add cores ONE BY ONE and manually update them. To each their own as Charco says. Edited May 25, 2017 by NLS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damageinc86 Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 (edited) 8 hours ago, lordmonkus said: I just find it odd that you called Retroarch a "convoluted mess" but yet you talk about using Mednafen which has no UI and a giant config file along with RocketLauncher which is an absolute nightmare to use. Yeah, maybe I just "get" how to work rocketlauncher, it can be very hard, but only for the more advanced things. I was able to set up mednafen with rocketlauncher almost right away. It was intuitive. there were tabs for emulator, point it to the exe, roms automatically got sent to mednafen, even without a gui to go through. and bam, it just worked. hardly took any time at all. I searched for "map controls" on mednafen website and alt+shift+1 for player one, another few minutes and the on screen mapping recognized whatever controller I pressed. It really didn't take much time at all to be completely working in terms of launching and playing. Now setting up fades and stuff, that took forever. But just to get an emulator working wasn't really bad at all. I only had to scour the forums for one thing to ever change in that giant config file. That was how to make the virtual boy screen just regular red instead of the 3d blue and red. That was it. I have never had to touch that giant config besides that one time. It took me hours with RA's per core configs, to actually get them to save. Sometimes they would, and sometimes they wouldn't, literally restarted that damn exe a thousand times just tweaking settings and stuff, hoping it would all work. Once it finally did all "take" I made sure to make a copy of it, because a bunch of times before it would just "blank" itself on a restart. Then trying every version, and then trying every possible control option they had. I guess it's really not a convoluted mess, the menu is pretty decent. But the controls just don't work, and it was a complete pain. so I guess that's where my frustration lied, and then I moved on. I bet it will be way better in the future, as most every emulator has gotten, so i'm still keeping hope alive. But to have something so rudimentary as controls be broken is a major bummer that's all. Mednafen has just worked. so of course i'm going to use it lol. Edited May 25, 2017 by damageinc86 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charco Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 My controllers have always just worked when I launched RA as it loads the autoconfig file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLS Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 The problem here is that us people that has spent many hours on those things and find things "simple and normal", have lost the actual measure of "simple and normal". We have to return to the "real newbie" (here with a positive meaning) from time to time. BTW this is actually missing from LaunchBox too. Until they implement wizards that start by default when something is not set up properly (or at all). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexis524 Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 17 hours ago, JamesBond@ge said: RetroArch is not a mess. It is a little bit tricky, in places, and I wouldn't recommend it for someone just getting back into emulation, but once you get it worked out, it is excellent. The OP made a good choice for frontends though. I was a long time user of another prominent frontend (Not Hyperspin) and LaunchBox is so much simpler, more customisable and prettier in comparison. yep, once you figure out that the "X" key is your Enter button, and "Z" is your Backspace, it's all good. Pretty straightforward from there on out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 It's actually not that anymore. It's Enter and Backspace. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NLS Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 I run (latest) RetroArch again a few minutes ago. Yeap, it is still chaos. Would definitely not suggest it to a newbie. Good progress though changing X/Z to Enter/BS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexis524 Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 (edited) good to know. It's been a minute since i had to go into the menu and cruise around. thanks for the correction @NLS, what has you frustrated with RA specifically? Edited May 25, 2017 by alexis524 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wolfhound89 Posted May 25, 2017 Author Share Posted May 25, 2017 Thank you to all for the comments and suggestions. I am happy to see that the community is so active and willing to help. So, here is what my near term plan is. Install and work with NES emulator Install and work with RetroArch I have tried both the USB X360 wired controller and USB SNES controller. Hopefully these baby steps will help me decide which one to go with. I was given a small HyperSpin build and it drove me crazy trying to get my controllers set-up for the various emulators. So, I will proceed with my plan in hopes of making progress this weekend. I hope that this will be a stepping stone to my larger plan. Thanks again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 I strongly suggest you check out the LB YouTube tutorial section there is a plethora of information there that can take out a lot of the guess work when setting things up. Especially for RetroArch. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charco Posted May 25, 2017 Share Posted May 25, 2017 Yep, and @lordmonkus' tutorial is pretty much the best one on the internet for RA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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